The Dead of Haggard Hall Read online

  I dismissed that nonsense with the wave of one hand, and instead considered my own position in all of this. “Does your husband not think it odd of you to wish to hire a companion when you have female relatives living in the house?”

  Emily was drawing patterns on the bedspread with one slightly crumby finger. “Well, Susan is older than me. I think he’s glad to provide me with some moral support.”

  I blinked. “From me? Do they know anything about me?”

  “Only what I told Arthur, which is that you were a teacher at my school and my best friend and that since your family had fallen on hard times I would very much like you to come and live with me, with a small allowance. A pittance, really. Sorry. But I knew you wouldn’t come just as a friend.”

  “Emily, I would.”

  “You wouldn’t have stayed. Not beyond a couple of nights.”

  “No,” I agreed. I regarded her for a long moment. She was too young and too engaging to need a friend so badly. “Does Arthur know about my…affinity with ghosts?”

  Emily nodded. “But I’ve said nothing to the others.”

  She didn’t need to. They were Arthur’s family. The reasons for being met in the ancient, bone-breaking coach and being placed in a room Emily considered inferior were a little clearer to me now, as was the housekeeper’s apparent slip in addressing me as “miss”. I suspected I was to be driven out by lack of respect. They had no way of knowing such trivia couldn’t drive me out. I would go, however; just not before I’d made sure Emily had her own respect and personal happiness.

  I got to my feet, suppressing the inevitable wince. I was sure it would be worse in the morning. I picked the tray up off the bed and walked over to the desk to set it down. “Then go back to your husband and let me go to bed. Tomorrow, we can have some fun.”

  Emily laughed and jumped up to hug me. “I have missed you, Mrs. Darke!”

  * * * * *

  The night was warm. Pale, soft moonlight played over the gravestones as I picked my way between them towards the ruined church. Spirits swarmed around me, among them uninvited demons of the lustful variety. I could feel them plucking and teasing at my sensuality, pleading to be let in. I wouldn’t let them, but secretly, I enjoyed their efforts. Since Gideon’s death, there had been no one to comfort or pleasure me in this way, and God knew I felt the lack of it. So did the demons.

  I pushed through them, walking up the broken path and into the moonlit church which was open to the sky. For a moment, I thought Gideon stood there in his vestments, and my arms opened in joy. But it was only a mirror image, which shattered before I could touch it and when I spun around, there was no one there either, just my demons and a shadow emerging from behind a half-broken pillar. I wanted to weep for Gideon, for our lost life together, for my own terrible loneliness that I never admitted to anyone, even my mother who knew…

  The shadow formed into the figure of the man I had come here to meet. The sceptic from my mother’s séance, who might have been called Patrick, like young Sir Arthur Haggard’s cousin. He threw his hat aside, and the demons he couldn’t see fell upon it, devouring it. It seemed to give them energy, solidifying their wispy shapes into little imps with huge, lashless eyes that turned on me, tugging at my physical needs as if they actually touched me.

  “Can’t you see them?” I said to the sceptic. “They want to control me, own me, just as you do.”

  “You’re delusional. I will own you, though, whenever I choose.”

  “No one owns me. Even Gideon never owned me. No one ever will.”

  “Silly girl. Where’s the fun in that?” He took me in his arms and laid me across the remains of a stone wall. The avid imps stroked me, but still he couldn’t see. And it was his touch I wanted. His hard eyes bored into mine but softened as his hand tore my dress down the middle, accidentally throwing the imps aside with the garment. And then his mouth closed on my breast, and my aching, desperate body arched to meet him.

  “Pleasure is something else,” I gasped. “You can have me—please have me!—but you won’t own me.”

  He placed his hand deliberately between my legs, and pleasure began to soar.

  Oh yes, at last, at last! It was sweet, so wonderful that I opened my blissful eyes. His face, so warm and clouded with passion, moved above mine, for he was inside me now, hard and powerful and unstoppable, and I wanted more. I reached up for his mouth, and he kissed me, and that was best of all…

  Until I felt his breath inside me, icy and malevolent, and I cried out, tearing my mouth free. It was no longer a human face above mine but a demon pounding into me and laughing.

  His voice, though cold and terrible, sounded almost like mine. “Owned, little girl! You are mine!”

  I woke with a cry which I had sense enough to muffle at once in the pillow. My heart beat like a rabbit’s. My whole body was aflame with lust and fear. A pulse beat and beat between my damp thighs as I tried to calm my breath.

  The room was in darkness and silence. It was the middle of the night, and spirits were abroad. Distant spirits, mostly gentle and uncaring, although something malevolent lurked among them. There had been evil done in this house, and there had been great unhappiness. There still was. All the grief and tragedy and joy of centuries of life and death in an unending cycle. Some of it remained for people like me.

  I was used to spirits, but I couldn’t always keep them out when I was asleep. Surely one remained too close to me, like an echo of its personality… But I was as subject to nightmares as anyone else. The atmosphere of this house, with all its conflicting emotions, was playing on my own insecurities.

  “Are you there, Gideon?” I whispered.

  And his voice, faint and distant and right now my only comfort, came back to me. “I’m always here.”

  Chapter Three

  In the morning, I was so stiff and sore I could barely get out of bed. Forcing myself, I walked to the mirror and examined the bruises on my hips and rear, and on my left shoulder where I’d been flung hard against the side of the carriage. I wondered what state the driver was in. Then I washed in last night’s cold water and dressed in one of the plain grey dresses I’d worn at the school. I thought demure was probably in order here too. I pinned my thick but relentlessly straight black hair behind my head in its usual, severe style, paying no attention to the fashion for loose locks on either side of the face. At least my face wasn’t bruised, although there were grey shadows of tiredness around my deep-set, dark blue eyes.

  I shrugged. I wasn’t here for my appearance, which merely had to be inoffensive to Emily’s new family.

  After several circuits of the bedroom, I felt loose enough to walk downstairs to breakfast, though I confess I was glad when Emily came to collect me. I found the thought of entering the breakfast room alone for the first time to join a gaggle of noble and disapproving strangers who wanted me gone just a little daunting. It seemed Emily and I would have to shore each other up if either of us were to find our way in this establishment.

  The breakfast room was on the ground floor. When we entered, it already contained two gentlemen eating over newspapers and a discontented lady drinking tea.

  One of the gentlemen, a very young man with chestnut hair swept back from his forehead in a romantic manner, glanced up as soon as we entered and smiled. His whole face lit up with it, and I liked him immediately. This had to be Emily’s husband.

  Jumping to his feet, he exclaimed, “You must be Mrs. Darke! Welcome to Haggard Hall! I’ve heard so much about you.”

  He shook my hand with such enthusiasm that I couldn’t be in doubt that he was pleased to see me. On the other hand, he wasn’t foolish. His eyes searched mine with surprising depth. I guessed he wanted me here for Emily’s sake but didn’t quite trust me to live up to her expectations. Which was fair and sensible of him.

  “My sister-in-law, Susan—you’ll forgive the informali
ty, we have three Lady Haggards living here now—and Mr. Henry Faversham, who’s an old family friend and my guardian to boot. Harry, Mrs. Darke is a particular friend of Emily’s.”

  Susan, Lady Haggard, looked to be in her late thirties. Her naturally wavy brown hair was scraped behind her head, leaving curls to dangle on either side of her thin face. It contained wisps of grey. A permanent frown had marked her brow, and her mouth was tight. She barely looked at me as I bowed to her. She certainly didn’t rise to greet me. I suspected she’d have been happier if I’d breakfasted in the kitchen.

  Mr. Henry Faversham, on the other hand, stood with perfect courtesy and greeted me with friendly words. A good-looking man of intelligence, still under forty years old, I guessed, who was unaware of either my present or previous position.

  Breakfast was laid out on long tables against the wall. Emily and I helped ourselves to eggs, ham, and toast—I couldn’t quite face the kedgeree—and sat down with the others.

  “So, how was your journey up from London?” Arthur enquired. “Awful?”

  Susan didn’t look at me, but I saw the grim twitch of her lips. I had her to thank for the coach, which I’d already guessed.

  “Long,” I replied lightly. “Which made me doubly glad to arrive.”

  “I hope you slept well?”

  “Like a baby,” I said. Apart from the nightmares.

  “And the sun has come out for you, so Emily will be able to show you around today. Do you ride, Mrs. Darke?”

  “Poorly.” The idea of bumping my poor body into a saddle for any part of the day appalled me. I only hoped Emily would choose to walk. I suspected that would be hard enough.

  “Then you didn’t teach riding at this school of yours?” Susan said suddenly.

  “No. Fortunately, I was never required to.”

  Susan’s lip curled openly. Finally, she looked at me, and didn’t appear to like what she saw. “So what did you teach?”

  The black arts, lying and cheating. It was a tempting answer, but fortunately I remembered in time that I was here to help Emily, not to annoy her new family with insolence.

  “Most subjects required by a young lady.”

  “Was Emily a good pupil?” Arthur asked with a mischievous grin.

  “When she chose to be. In time, with application, she could have risen to be a teacher herself.”

  Emily laughed, but Susan, clearly lacking a sense of humour, thinned her lips with outrage.

  “You were Emily’s teacher?” Mr. Faversham asked with unexpected interest. At least he didn’t appear to consider it a crime.

  “I had that arduous task for a year,” I replied.

  “Barbara was a wonderful teacher,” Emily said warmly. “She even made mathematics interesting.”

  “That was arduous,” I interjected and won a laugh from Mr. Faversham as well as from Emily and Arthur.

  Which was when, without warning, the world spun around me in a vortex of hatred and fear I couldn’t distinguish. I heard concerned voices in the distance; my fork clattered against my plate, and I gasped as I jolted back to reality, as if I’d landed back in my chair from a great height.

  “Martin,” I whispered. The fog was clearing, and I was peering up at Emily.

  “I beg your pardon?” she repeated uncertainly.

  Oh dear. This was not helping her cause or mine. My sense of urgency was useless since I’d no idea what had happened or where. Or when, if it came to that.

  “Forgive me,” I said with an effort. “I felt faint for a moment.”

  “Drink your tea,” Emily advised. Her eyes were still worried.

  I seized my cup and drained it before rising to my feet with a wince. “I think, a little fresh air. I’ll fetch my cloak and bonnet… Excuse me.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Emily said hastily.

  “Sorry,” I murmured as we left the room. I could hear Susan inside, condemning my “ridiculous histrionics”. “But if there’s someone called Martin in the house, you should find him…”

  “There isn’t. Unless it’s one of the servants? I don’t recall the name, though.”

  “Maybe it’s an old event,” I said, rubbing my forehead as we climbed the stairs. It didn’t feel old, though, it still felt urgent, and I had to fight off swarming emotions. “Do you know of any tragedies in the house?”

  “Well, lots, I suppose. George died here. And a few years ago, Patrick’s wife, as I told you. Perhaps her maiden name was Martin. I told you, she might have jumped.”

  I had felt myself falling, so the explanation wasn’t unreasonable. The house had unsettled me.

  “Oh dear,” I said, “why did she do that?”

  Emily shrugged. “She was highly strung, I believe. The unkind say Patrick drove her to it, but Arthur won’t allow that.”

  “Is Patrick here?” I asked.

  “No,” she said with clear relief, “and I don’t think he’s expected for a while.”

  Armed with our capes and bonnets, we met again on the main staircase and had just reached the entrance hall when a commotion reached us. A flurry of servants rushed around, at least one of the maids in floods of tears. Arthur and Mr. Faversham emerged from the dining room, the former issuing orders for the doctor to be summoned.

  “What’s going on?” Emily demanded. “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been an accident,” Arthur said, his boyish face pinched with worry. “One of the servants fell from an upper window.”

  Martin. His name is Martin.

  * * * * *

  His name was indeed Martin, and he was a stable boy. Which begged several questions. What was he doing on the upper floors of the house? And how had a healthy, strapping lad managed to fall out the window?

  Of course, there was another question, which I hoped no one but Emily knew to ask: How had I known the name of the injured man?

  In fact, by the time Emily and I went outdoors, he was the dead man. His covered body was being carried away to his family in the village.

  We stood respectfully still as they passed us in front of the house, which somehow looked no less forbidding in the daylight. When they had moved on, I raised my head and looked up over the weathered stone. There were small windows all along the roof space—presumably the servants’ quarters—until the corner of the house where the roof had been built outward and a large corner window installed. The full length of the window was opened outward, presumably where Martin had fallen.

  Emily whispered, “That’s exactly where Rose killed herself. Patrick’s wife. Isn’t that strange? Isn’t this house strange, Barbara?”

  “It’s people that are strange,” I observed. “People who make places feel good or bad. And not every oddity has a supernatural explanation.”

  She gave a droopy smile. “Yes, Mrs. Darke.” After a moment, she said, “How terrible that I didn’t even know his name.”

  There was nothing I could reply to that. She was new to the Hall, married only a few weeks, and she would have had little call to visit the stables. But yes, perhaps she should have known his name. I doubted it would have kept him alive.

  “Is his family in the village?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Susan deals with the servants.”

  I looked at her. “Still? You are mistress here now, Emily.”

  “Yes, but she seems to enjoy it.”

  “And she orders the rooms and the meals too?”

  Emily looked at her toes and began to walk.

  I kept pace with her. “Emily, if you’re not happy about the way things are done, you must give the orders for change.”

  “I will have your things moved to the green room in the main part of the building—it’s much more comfortable.”

  “I’m comfortable where I am,” I said firmly. “I mean future arrangements. You were brought
up to run a household, you know.”

  “Not one of this size!”

  “I imagine the principles are the same. Why don’t you ask Susan to help you learn? That way you show you value her but make it plain you are mistress here now. She might even appreciate it.”

  She considered that. Then: “I should visit the boy’s family, shouldn’t I? Make sure they don’t need for anything.”

  I nodded. “I think so. Why would he have been up there? What’s in that part of the attic?”

  “I have no idea,” Emily said. “I’ve never been up. I thought it was all servants’ quarters.”

  This time, I didn’t even need to look.

  “I should know that too, shouldn’t I?” she said in a small voice.

  “You’ve been on honeymoon,” I excused her. “But perhaps it’s time to arrange a meeting with your Mrs. Grant for a dose of dull reality.”

  * * * * *

  When we returned from our walk, I left my cloak and bonnet in my room, and, being innately curious, I went exploring. It wasn’t long before I found my way up a narrow staircase that led from the second floor up into the corner of the attic from where poor Martin had fallen.

  At the top were two doors. I opened the one on the right—a quiet corridor of servants’ bedrooms under the eaves. I closed the door again and turned to the other. I paused with my fingers on the latch. Someone was moving inside. I could hear their footsteps. More than that, this area of the house was redolent with intense emotion which pushed at me like unseen hands. For no obvious reason, my heart beat quickened. I didn’t want to go in.

  But I did.

  Sir Arthur Haggard, swung around from the open window and regarded me with surprise.

  “Mrs. Darke! Are you looking for me?”

  “I’m afraid I was just looking. Curiosity is my besetting sin, and I couldn’t help wondering what a stable boy was doing up here.”